What is knowledge and what is real?

To an extent, life is an illusion and a delusion. Just because we think something is real does not make it so. In research which aims to produce new knowledge, we need to come to a view of where reality lies in old knowledge, where we are theorising, and what evidence we need to bridge gaps. Knowledge is different from belief in that knowledge is always based on evidence, whereas belief is given, accepted and passed on. Knowledge therefore changes as new evidence emerges, whilst belief normally remains the same. We might seek out the evidence behind our knowledge and deliberately try to disprove it or extend it. This is the purpose of research. So 'knowledge' is incomplete, transient, constantly revised. It is 'what we think we know at the moment'. My 'knowledge of Russia' would change if I went there. My knowledge of Maths would change if I studied and practiced it. We talk about knowledge as 'constructed' - that is, the evidence is weighed and from it we attempt to build the jigsaw. The jigsaw metaphor only goes so far, since there is a final form of the jigsaw, but no final form of knowledge. It evolves, and always will.

Nevertheless, and indeed because of this principle of uncertainty, the evidence has to be weighed and handled carefully, rigorously and reliably. It has to bear the weight we put upon it when constructing our version of knowledge. We have to satisfy other rigorous researchers who wish to know whether our work has implications for their own. We need therefore to be persuasive through our evidenced argument - demonstrating that our evidence reflects what is real and we have not selected only what we want. We need to consider whether the evidence is ambiguous, capable of being interpreted various ways. We have to distinguish between evidence, belief and opinion. These can cross contaminate.

The evidence has at some stage to be packaged, that is, put into a coherent explanatory argument. This is the construction of theory. It is a balance between understanding pre-existing theories - e.g. learning theories, development theories, management theories, organisational theories - and working out the most coherent way of explaining our own data in the light of the particular question we are asking.

A theory will develop over time. Evolution has been tested and modified for so long that no biologist would consider it insecure as an explanation of physical development mechanisms. But sometimes, researchers are conservative and it can be hard to overturn theories which have run their course because there is too much vested interest. Thomas Kuhn demonstrated this in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1961. New theories can change the way we view the world: plate techtonic theory and continental drift changed our way of approaching geology and physical geography. The theory of relativity changed physics for ever.

Qualitative research must be no less rigorous. It measures less and interprets more, so interpretation has to be multi-dimensional, polyvocal (drawing on many sources and points of view), and securely evidenced, not only using field notes but also recording methods of many kinds (voice and video recordings, photographs and documents).

Do we ever find "the real"? Scientists have traditionally believed that they are dealing with reality, and are called positivists. Yet explaining gravity, or light, or matter has been anything but clear over the centuries, and the future may still find us wanting. In the qualitative area, quality, feelings, motivations, strategies and so on are not difficult to evidence but rather more difficult to explain fully and deeply.

Thus we need to be cautious about claiming something as real. We hope that the issue we are working on is a real issue, and we can only demonstrate it by explaining why we have, through our life experiences, come to recognise that issue as real and in need of a solution.